wilsoml2

$6000 was for the wedding and reception. It did not include our stay.

CancunBride11,

 

Yes, our cocktail hour was at 7 and the reception at 8. I'm not entirely sure what time the spa closes, so you may be able to get in there around 7. That's something you'll have to confirm with your WC. Good luck, I'm glad to be helpful!

 

Originally Posted by CancunBride11 

Thank you so much Wilsom12... you posted more than enough!!!:0):0) I think I want it there since it looks more private than the rest of the locations. Your cocktail hour started at 7pm? reception started at 8pm? We have our cocktail hour at 6pm and reception at 7pm... I am hoping we can get the Spa Terrace since its only an hour earlier.

 

Thank again!
 

 

 

CancunBride11

 

The spa terrace is located near the pier. Check out the Resort Map, the terrace is next to the tennis courts and behind the "outdoor spa cabins":

 

http://www.dreamsresorts.com/drecu/resort-map.html

 

So, the spa terrace is basically surrounded on 3 sides. The 4th side that faces the ocean has a low wall that you can see over. It overlooks the outdoor massage areas (little palapa type things) then the ocean. It was dark by the time we had our reception at 8pm, so you couldn't see the ocean anyways. I think technically you could see it though if you start your reception during the day.

 

Here is a link to our Cocktail Hour/Reception pictures. None of them are edited (I'm slowly working on that!) so some are a bit dark. Hopefully it helps!

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/stevenranck/WeddingReception#

 

And finally, here is the best picture I can find to show you where the spa terrace is.

 

 

The main building is where World Cafe and the Check-in desk is located. In the ocean, you can see the pier. The large building behind it is Oceana. The lagoon and pool are just out of the picture on the right side. Where the arrow is, you can see some tall light poles. That is where the tennis court is located, and the spa terrace is next to it.
 

Originally Posted by CancunBride11 

Wilsom12, 

 

I appreciate this picture. My main concern is, where is the Spa Terrace located? Can I see the beach from it (like the lobby terrace)? or is it closed in. My first choice was the regular Lobby Terrace, but it is booked :0( After looking at your pictures from your review, I became interested in the Spa Terrace. Your pictures came out really nice, but there are no pictures of where the Spa Terrace is located? I haven't seen any other pictures. Is there a site that you can direct me to? or can you post more pictures. I don't mean to be a bother. Thank you for your help :0)

 

 

 

 

I have spa terrace pictures in my review: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/61433/melissa-s-wilsoml2-dreams-cancun-7-2-2010-wedding-review

 

We didn't have Juan stay for our reception (wish we had!), so the pictures are pretty dark. It was awesome though since it was very private. The spa closes in the evening, so no one walked through or anything. I loved having it there.  We had 37 people (4 tables + sweetheart table) and I think there was room for a few more tables, but it might get a bit tight with more than 6. We had plenty of space for dancing. Here's the spa during the day:

 

 

Originally Posted by CancunBride11 

Hello everyone :0)

 

I am debating on having my reception at the Spa Terrace or Lobby Terrace. I would like to know if anyone can post any pictures of the Spa Terrace? Does anyone know where it is located and how it could accommodate 50 guests,  including a dance area?

 

In regards to the Lobby Terrace, does anyone have any photos of a wedding there. I looked at photos, but none of them had it decorated for a wedding.

 

I appreciate your help!! Thank you!

 

If your WC has you down for a certain date, you're pretty much good to go regardless of the deposit. Cecilia never received our deposit so didn't take it out of the final bill but we still had our wedding as planned! It turns out that the accounting department at Dreams had received it, but never got around to telling the wedding department. 
 

Originally Posted by jana297 

I am such a control freak!!! It is so hard for me to wait till last minute for anything. I am trying to get her to take my deposit to hold my date. I am really nervous because I have already started making things for my wedding with the specific date on it. I have shared emails back and forth with her for months and she said I could hold my date with a credit card around December of 2010. I'm just so worried another bride has paid and gotten the date I want. I wish I had a more patient self and wasn't so controlling. We picked the date so far out so that all of our friends and family could afford going. Now I wish we said to hell with it and were getting married this April. Rudebaga when is your wedding? Is it getting close?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rudebaga 

@jana297: I wouldn't worry too much if you're not getting quick responses from Claudia at this point...and I don't know that putting urgent on your emails will help...your wedding is over a year away, they're do weddings all the time and are swamped with the planning for weddings coming up in the next month, I'm sure you can understand why they would put your email on hold compared to all the brides emailing whose weddings are in the coming weeks.  They don't really get "on it" on replying to your emails until your wedding is about 3 months away or less. If there are specific things you want that are different than what your wedding package has, then clarify any changes you want (ie: a different photographer, and outside florist, etc)...but for things that your package includes like picking your menu or flowers, you have lots of time before they'll start going over all that with you 

 

If you want anything specific, you have to email the WCs with your requests. Otherwise, I don't think they'll contact you until you arrive at the resort and set up a meeting with them a few days before the wedding. At least that was my experience. For instance, if you want Juan Navarro I'd definitely ask for him. We did not specifically ask for him ahead of time and got some of his assistants since he was out of town. They were still amazing (he runs a good business) but some brides may have been put off a bit. Apparently he has like 5 photographers working under him.

 

As for the video thing, I don't think it was up and running at the time I was there (July 2010). I could be wrong though since we didn't use it. I think I remember another bride saying that somewhere. Hope that helps! 7 weeks will go by fast, good luck and congrats!

 

Originally Posted by rudebaga 

Hello Ladies,

 

I posted a couple questions a few weeks back, but never got any responses, so I'm trying again...

 

Wondering when you guys started hearing back from your WC to start putting together your wedding package.  Our wedding is 7 weeks from yesterday.  Our date was set and our contract drawn up for the Ultimate Pkg back in March/April...will I be hearing from them soon about flower selections, booking the photographer (want to make sure I get Juan Navarro! His pics look amazing!), appointing an officiant, etc...???

 

Also, I had read a while back on the Dreams website that they were working on providing a web address that friends/family that couldn't make it to Mexico to attend your wedding could go to to watch a live feed of the wedding online.  Anyone know if this is true or has been able to utilize this for your wedding?

 

Thanks ladies!

Debbie 

My CHI worked fine at Dreams. I've been in their standard rooms and in the tower. Didn't really matter since it was always so humid when I was there that my hair immediately frizzed when I stepped outside. I hope you can figure something out, I can't go anywhere without my straightener!
 

Originally Posted by peterpanpixiedust 

I need some help!  I thought I asked this before, but the search turned up nothing.   What straightener did you ladies bring with you to Dreams?  I went on my site visit last year, and my CHI did not work at Dreams.  It did, however, work at my fiance's family's timeshare resort, The Royal Sands, just 5 mins down the hotel zone.  I am looking for a professional grade straightener that will work (not Conair or Hot tools).  I don't know why the CHI would work at one place in Cancun, but not another.  And I don't think it's Dreams wiring, because my hair dryer worked at Dreams.  I don't want to rely on a converter, because I have heard that they don't work well with flat irons.  So, just asking if any of your flat irons worked down there.

 

Originally Posted by clgriffi7 

I guess $600 doesn't sound that horrible to me if all of the guests would stick around and really dance (though it would be +>$300 for an extra hour for the DJ).  What do you think about adding an extra hour?

 

Currently, my wedding will be at 5pm, cocktail hour (might make this just cocktails from the bar if too many people attend) from 6-7pm, reception from 7-10pm. Would it be worth it to extend the reception to 11pm?  I assume the meal will take from 7-8pm, leaving after 8pm for dancing.

 

Thanks in advance for your opinions. (though I know any answer is partially dependent on how many people and what mix - family vs friends - attend)

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by meldal101010 

The extra hour is a rip off...It cost us $600 for ONE extra hour (covering 26 people) There was no negotiating it down either.

 

 

 

 

Originally Posted by chell44 

 

I stole your idea, but since I can't even sew a button, I'm having someone make them, only charging me a buck a bag including the fabric

 

That's a sweet deal. I paid over $3 per bag just for materials.

I bought my chair sashes here. There are several options, but these are $0.59 each.

 

http://www.weddinglinensdirect.com/8xorsapa.html
 

Originally Posted by briannarae23 

oh and also, what is the best place to buy chair sashes?

We paid $350 but they started off at $500. Always negotiate!
 

Originally Posted by toriOary 

Hey Ladies,

 

Levaing next Friday and we are extremley tight on  money so trying to plan every penny...... can I ask past brides how much they have paid Juan Navarro for the CD Rom of pictures?......

 

Thanks,

Tor

I'm sorry that you have to go through this. Yes, the woman appears to be trying to be respectful, but it still is discriminatory. Of course the government can't "legislate peoples' heart and belief systems" but they can legislate business practices and what she is doing appears to be illegal in Mexico (assuming what you said about their laws is true).

 

Hopefully you can find other vendors with better business practices. Try to not let this ruin your big day. As my husband constantly reminded me when we were planning our wedding (and things kept going wrong), all that matters is you two. As long as you're together, everything will be fine! Best of luck!

Congrats on setting a date! Just wanted to mention that as long as you've been charged, the date is set. You won't get a signed contract from Claudia until you meet with her at the resort a few days before your wedding. I guess it's just how they do things in Mexico. In fact, we did a wire transfer and never got confirmation that Dreams received it but our wedding day was still reserved for us!

 

Have fun planning, a year will go by before you know it!

 

Originally Posted by clgriffi7 

Hi Ladies!

 

I am 99% sure that I am a Dreams Cancun bride!  I have signed a contract for November 5, 2011 and they just charged my credit card for the wedding deposit.  I am just waiting to get a copy of the contract signed by Claudia before I feel 100% confident that I have a wedding date.

 

I have been active on this site since June and I have been lurking around this thread while 1) deciding  between Dreams Cancun & Dreams Puerto Aventuras and then 2) working on securing a date with TA Jill.

 

Congrats to all the brides that are nearing their special days!

 

Courtney

I don't think it's too hard. It's similar to Word and Outlook but much easier to get things to go where you want them! Good luck!
 

Originally Posted by adales 

Thanks for the templates.  I just realized that i have publisher on my computer.  Is it a hard program to use?

My bridesmaids and I only had our makeup done at the salon, but it went pretty quickly, probably only about half an hour. I'm not sure how long hair takes, but I imagine a 1 pm appointment would be fine.

 

Yes, Dreams does sometimes have at least 2 weddings a day during the busy season. There was one scheduled for 2 hours before mine, but somehow it got pushed back until 45 minutes before mine. Somehow they pulled it off!

I feel like we only had an hour and a half for dancing, so dinner (with the speeches, first dance, etc) took about an hour and a half also. We had about 37 people, so serving everyone took a bit of time. With a smaller party it might be only an hour or so.

 

 

Originally Posted by Clean122 

 

Where did you find your chap stick from?? I only need around 35 but im having a hard time getting a good deal.

 

I got mine at Dollar Tree. They were 2 for $1. It was the best deal I could find.

 

 

 

Originally Posted by heatherlrex 

 

Hello fellow brides!!

 

I am getting married next saturday 8.28 at Dreams Cancun and I have a question about the photographer.  We have the Ultimate package and didn't purchase an additional package.  This apparently includes 50 photos and an album.  How long is Juan Navarro there with you?  Do you get photos when you are getting ready or just of the ceremony?  Does he stay throughout the reception?  When I meet with Claudia when I arrive, can I request additional photos or get a CD of all the pictures added on?

 

That is the only thing that I am really worried about.  I was very relaxed with it up front and now I am thinking that maybe I should have asked a few more questions. 

 

Any advice you have would be very much appreciated!!

 

Heather

 

We only used the photo package that came with the Ultimate wedding and Juan's team was there approximately 2 hours. It was mainly just the ceremony, group pictures afterwards, and pictures of DH and I while our guests were at the cocktail hour. They did not take pictures before the wedding or at the reception and we didn't get pictures of our guests at the cocktail hour either. However, in the short amount of time we had them, they took about 1050 pictures! I have to say that I wish we had them for longer because the pictures were amazing.

 

I have a feeling that your wedding coordinator will be able to work something out with Juan's team if you want them for longer, but don't quote me on that! You may want to email Claudia and let her know that you may be interested in a different package so that way she can give them a heads up even earlier.

 

Good luck and congrats!

 

 

Originally Posted by Rachel&Chris2011 

 

Hi Ladies, Does anyone have pics of the other areas you can have your reception besides the beach. My mother is giving me such a hard time about having the reception on the beach so I'd like to check out the other spots... Pics please

 

There's another thread with tons of pics of the Club Terrace which is one place you could have the reception. I believe they've done some updating (more permanent shade structure instead of the white wooden shade things).

 

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/15854/post-pics-of-dreams-cancun-here-pic-heavy

 

You could also have it in the garden, which is in grass instead of sand. There's a picture on the Dreams Cancun website of a wedding setup in that area.

 

I had mine in the spa terrace, although I'm not sure that's usually an option. I was only given that area because the Club Terrace was under construction. I do have a few pictures in my review (see my signature) and there are also some in Cancunbride2be's review (scroll down to post #9 and #10): http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/16783/kristin-s-cancunbride2be-dreams-cancun-wedding-review-long

 

Hope that helps!

 

 

Originally Posted by Nadine2010 

 

 

 

 

Wow, I would love a white runner but i thought all hope was gone! $80 is a little excessive though! 

 

 

While we were there last month there was one wedding that used the white carpet. It was filthy and obviously hadn't been cleaned in awhile. I wouldn't want it for free let alone for $80!

You looked beautiful Shae, I love your dress! Can't wait to see your review. I was married 10 days before you but still like seeing pictures!

Here's mine!

http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...-review-61433/

Hopefully it's helpful!

Lighting beneath the table was $25 per table. We had white lights, I'm not sure if colored lights are more or less expensive. The table clothes and whatnot were included. I love how the pattern on the top overlay showed through with the lights, too! Centerpieces were $40 each although I think a couple of past brides mentioned that they got the exact same ones for free. Overall it was such a minor cost compared to the rest of the package that I didn't mind too much!

Juan Navarro's team is great, I hope you love their work as much as I did! We only had them for the length of time that the Ultimate package gave us, which probably was about 2 hours. I think it would have been nice having them a little longer for some 'getting ready' pictures and some of the reception as well. We had a friend that's a semi-pro photog taking some pictures, but also having Juan's team was nice because they knew exactly where to go to get the best shots. I do kind of wish we had spent the extra money to have more time with them.

As for the reception, Cecilia said that they don't usually offer the spa terrace but since the club terrace was closed, we could have it. Maybe if you asked her specifically for it? I did remember reading somewhere that the reception has to start after the spa closes, however, which is at 8 pm.

I believe the DJ was about $950. Cecilia quoted me $280 an hour + 11.5% tax. I think Dreams charges the same for all of the DJs, regardless of who it is. My guess is that Doremixx was already booked which is why you can only get Mannia. I've heard good things about them as well!

As for the officiant, Gino, he was actually moving around quite a bit. At first he was directly in front of us, almost standing in the aisle. Then he went off to the side for a bit. During our vows, he standed behind the person who wasn't speaking. For instance, when I was saying my vows, Gino was behind my husband. I think he did that so we could see what he was saying besides just listening for it. After telling Cecilia that we wanted to use our own script, she had Gino email me and I sent him the script directly. This was probably 3-4 months prior. He emailed me a few days before the wedding then, to make sure we hadn't made any changes. I'm not sure that's how it works for every officiant though, since I know that Dreams uses several. In fact, Cecilia had forgotten that she had arranged Gino to come since she asked if we preferred what gender the officiant was!

Hope that helps!

And you're getting married at DC, too?! That's awesome! You're going to love it, a few of my guests are already talking about going back next year! Good luck planning, it'll be here before you know it!

Wedding continued…

 

Dinner was served, it was good but my stomach was upset so I didn’t eat much more than a taste of anything. We had the Caeser salad, parmentier soup, Dreams Trilogy and strawberry cheesecake. Some guests said it was the best food they had all week, although apparently the shrimp was incredibly salty. I don’t like shrimp so I never would have noticed! Afterwards we did the cake cutting (the vanilla cake was delicious!) and started dancing. We had a blast! The garter toss was hilarious, the DJ made DH take the garter off with his teeth, so at least everyone got a good look at my blue crinoline! Our Brazilian friend caught the garter, you should have seen his face when he realized he had to put it on some girl’s leg!

 

Cake cutting

 

Dancing with balloons from DJ Doremixx

 

Garter toss.

 

Oh, DH and the groomsmen had gone out that morning and bought a ton of cigars to share with everyone. It was great seeing my Dad let loose with a cigar and whiskey in his hand. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, hopefully everyone liked my personalized matchbooks! One thing that I noticed was missing was my cardbox, Cecilia must have forgotten it. It turned out no one brought any cards, so it was fine!

 

Overall, everything was fantastic and simply amazing. Little things went wrong but most of them ended up being fine in the end. I cannot say enough about the people that work at Dreams, they made the entire trip and I feel that many of our guests were impressed. As for cost, I believe we paid under $6000 which included 37 people. Couldn’t ask for much better!

 

Photography – Juan Navarro – A++++

 

Alex and Tony from Juan Navarro Photography did our wedding and they were great. They gave good direction and made us feel very confident in their work. I knew our pictures were going to be awesome before I even saw them. My only regret is that we didn’t hire them for longer than what our package included! We met with them at Dreams Riviera Cancun the following Wednesday evening (July 7th). They gave us our album and the pictures were awesome as expected. They told us they had more and I was excited to see them but I figured they’d just be more copies of the 60 that we got with our package. As soon as I saw the thumbprints I knew I was wrong and that we were going to buy that CD no matter what. They had taken 1029 pictures! Once we quickly went through them, we asked how much and they came back with $500 at first. I had heard some of the brides on here said they paid way less than that and I had told DH to expect them to go high. He said he wouldn’t pay more than $300, they said $350, but cash. It was a deal!

 

Most of the ceremony pictures from above and all of the lighthouse pictures were taken by Tony and Alex. I love them!

 

DJ Doremixx – A+++

 

Although our time seemed much too short, the DJ was awesome. I didn’t catch the name of the actual guy but we had so much fun. Everyone commented on how well they mixed the music. I think at some point we had sent a song list to Cecilia and she must have passed it on to them because they played a lot of our favorites, even during dinner. They were also very adaptable since we didn’t give them any kind of timeline. We basically walked up and told them what we wanted to do and they did it for us! Again, I just wish we could have danced for longer!

 

Dreams Cancun – A++++++

 

Some people complain that the resorts rooms are old and in need of an update, but I think they are still great. Sure, it’s not as modern as Dreams Riviera Cancun but the location and service just can’t be beat. It’s surrounded on 3 sides by water so you have a beautiful view no matter where you are. I also like how it’s more spread out so there’s always somewhere else to go if you don’t like the atmosphere. The staff is also amazing, you recognize someone everywhere you go and they recognize you, too. We walked by some guys fixing a light in one of the halls and even they made a point to say hello.

 

That’s it, sorry it was so long! In the end, I wouldn’t do anything differently, except maybe keeping my DH from having an allergic reaction to something the night before our wedding. I’m not sure that could have been helped though and in the end it was fine. One other quick suggestion, we did the zip lines at Selvatica and they were AWESOME! Unfortunately it was pouring rain the whole time but we still had a blast. It actually made me feel pretty hardcore doing it in the rain! Check it out!